FORMER national road race champion Walter Grant-Stuart, who represented Team Cocos in the recently concluded fourth annual Bigi Bergi four-stage cycle road race in neighbouring Suriname, placed fourth overall to end as the top Guyanese cyclist.
Grant-Stuart overall timing for the event was 8h.15m:13secs, as he finished behind Suriname’s Moses Ricketts who won in a time of 7h. 42m: 11secs, and Eric Vincent and Michel Sebico of French Guiana respectively.
Roraima Bikers Club’s (RBC) Alonso Greaves, who won the first stage on Friday afternoon with a time of 2h.21m: 37 secs ahead of Linden Bauxite Flyers Cycle Club’s Rastaff Oselmo who was two seconds slower that Greaves and Grant-Stuart, a further two seconds behind Oselmo, occupied the seventh position overall.
According to reports reaching Chronicle Sport, Greaves, Oselmo, Grant-Stuart and the vast-improving Raynauth Jeffrey, broke away from the peloton on the upward journey of the first stage and stayed together up to the turning point.
Midway during the return to the finish line, Jeffrey was dropped by the front trio and was caught by a chasing peloton that included Enzo Matthews, Paul De Nobrega and Raul Leal, among other cyclists.
Jeffrey did enough to finish in fourth position, while he took the top junior category prize for the first stage which covered a distance of 95km, while faulty officiating from the Surinamese officials, saw several Guyanese cyclists being placed in positions lower than where they finished.
Ricketts won the second stage which covered a distance of 105km, in a time of 2h. 29m: 57secs, ahead of Jean Michel Clet, Vincent and Sebico respectively, while LBFCC’s Orville Hinds, Grant-Stuart and Leal occupied the fifth, sixth and seventh positions, with Greaves finishing ninth.
Ricketts proved his superiority over his opponents, when he stopped the clock at 12.22:7 to take the top spot in the 10km Time Trial last Sunday morning, while Jeffrey and Greaves placed 6th and 11th respectively with their times being 13:13:4 and 13:28:1 respectively, while both Jeffrey and Greaves were given unofficial group times of 1:52:00 for the fourth and final stage.
Despite his impressive showing throughout the event, Jeffrey was forced to settle for the runner-up position in the Junior category which was won by Shane Meerberg of Suriname, with Leal and De Nobrega placing third and fourth respectively.
According to president of RBC Brian Allen, the registration process was flawed – names and numbers did not correspond – resulting in total confusion at the end of the first stage, to an extent where persons were credited with other persons’ time.
The outspoken Allen added that the officiating at the finish lines was grossly inadequate, with the camera which was being used by the officials, being handled manually, focusing from side on to the finish line, making it difficult to pick up the cyclist’s number which was affixed to the lower back of their shirts.
“This made placing and positioning inaccurate because the officials had to identify persons by team colours with the help of their respective team officials, which put us at a distinct disadvantage because we were not centrally located,” stated Allen.
He used the first stage as an example, wherein Oselmo placed second to Greaves, but the official result sheet credited Michael Nelson with that position, while Enzo Matthews who finished in the second group, saw his position being given to Mario King, coupled with numerous other mix-ups that were not rectified.
“Added to that, reports for each stage were not received until the start of the following stage. Hence, checks and queries to authenticate these reports were very difficult to make, because the officials were very shifty and they procrastinated.
Time was always against the entire Guyanese contingent since we were located away from the control centre and the other teams, – approximately two hours drive – and this put us at a distinct disadvantage.
Based on checks that I did, and queries that were not properly addressed, I am of the firm conclusion that the Guyanese contingent did better than was reported by the Bigi Bergi officials, with Greaves holding a place on the podium, and the juniors, Jeffrey, Leal and De Nobrega making a clean sweep of the top three junior positions,” stated Allen.
Despite the complaints, Allen took the opportunity to express heartfelt thanks to RBC’s list of sponsors, namely Marco Trading of North Road, CIDI and Ansa McAl Limited, who all made their trip a successful one.
“On behalf of the executives and members of Roraima Bikers Club, we would like to thank our sponsors for making this tour possible, and to assure them that it was indeed an investment well spent, since our guys gained invaluable exposure, in addition to doing well. Once again, thank you.”